I'm not selling anything other than my connection to the moment.
~ Kyle Cease
Ironically, the day that Arianna Huffington wrote about my great writing I didn't have enough money to do the laundry, eat, or even think about having health insurance. So after another three years of relentless graveling to be paid writer (what a novel idea!!!), last week my mind hatched the hare-brained scheme to start a Kickstarter campaign to pay Ira Israel $1,000,000 NOT to write for the next ten years.
Since publishers are united and resolute in refusing to pay me TO write, I thought it would be advantageous to all parties involved to pay me to stop submitting proposals and articles without the requisite 50,000 - 100,000 social media "followers" that it takes to get a book deal these days. I mean, if James Joyce sent the manuscript of "Ulysses" to agents or publishers today they would still ask him what his Instagram numbers were.
Corporations are not looking for "the best"; they are looking for "the most profitable." Welcome to late capitalism!
But then I attended Kyle Cease's "Evolving Out Loud - Where Comedy and Transformation Meet" weekend performance/workshop and had my entire paradigm shifted. Kyle discussed how he enjoys depleting his bank accounts - most often by handing out $20 bills to homeless people - because it keeps him hungry.
"I'm the apple tree," he said. "I can always grow more apples."
And that is when I had my first "a-ha" moment of the weekend: so instead of walking around bitching and moaning to my friends about the great lengths people will go to avoid paying me to write, I'm going to tell them that I'm the apple tree - I am infinitely creative. Any surplus of abundance would just go rotten if I tried to save it so I just have to keep hungry, keep in the flow, until the universe tells me that it is time to stop writing (like when I die - then I'll know for sure that it's time to stop writing).
But the most amazing part of the weekend was when a participant named Aaron spoke about his addiction to security and material comforts that hindered him from quitting his soul-crushing job and pursue his dream of being a musician. It's difficult to describe in words what happened over the next twenty minutes but 1,400 people watched Kyle gently coach Aaron into realizing that he needed to find a way to embrace insecurity and stop trying to please others. When Aaron egregiously resisted Kyle's coaching with lines such as, "But I don't know how to read music" Aaron responded "Yeah, not reading music sure stopped Michael Jackson" with impeccable comedic timing.
And then ex nihilo, Kyle started singing a perfect acappella rendition of Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror" complete with moon-walking and other trademark Jackson moves and convinced Aaron to join in... just imagine two paunchy middle-age white guys who have never met before spontaneously bursting into "Man in the Mirror" in perfect harmony note for note and you will understand why 1,400 strangers rose to their feet to wildly applaud Aaron and encourage him to imagine the hitherto unseen.
And that is the type of magic that Kyle was able to create by inspiring people to release their fears, find their authentic voices, embrace not knowing, and explore playing - playing the way children play.